Five Days Grace (8 page)

She gave him a serious frown when she came back and saw that he was on the floor, but she didn't say anything, just knelt at his side, organizing her supplies. The dog, who'd been following her around, stretched out in front of the fire himself and looked like he was ready for Grace to tend to him, too.

Aidan pulled his right arm up, tucking his hand behind his head, and lay there, ready to let her do what she wanted, hoping it would make her feel better and she'd quit worrying that she'd really hurt him. As if someone her size could really hurt him.

And he thought he was starting to understand her family wanting to take care of her, even to the point of crowding her. How could anyone not want to take care of this woman? That fragile-looking beauty, the softness to her, the kindness, how young she looked. Add to that imagining how easily she could be hurt.

Zach McRae's sister,
he reminded himself.

A man didn't mess with a friend's sister, especially when the friend was doing him a huge favor. That was definitely against the man-code. Not to mention, when the woman was married—was she still married?—and really hurting because her husband was an idiot and an ass.

But, damn, she was pretty, inside and out.

The world had a lot of pretty women in it. No doubt about that. But pretty and nice? Kind and funny? That was truly rare, a combination Aidan had never found in his life.

She'd wrapped her arms around him back in the bedroom, and it had been all he could do not to weep, it felt so good. Made him want to tell her every damned thing he'd been through in the past three and a half months. He thought she'd not only understand, but care and want even more to help him. And he was a man who, to this point, had done nothing but push away everyone who'd tried to help.

Now, she was going to have her hands all over him again. What he'd done to deserve that sweet torture, he didn't know, though he wasn't sorry. It had been a damned long time since a woman had touched him like this.

He closed his eyes and felt her hands, soft and careful, as she swabbed the wound with something. He willed himself not to wince or to make any kind of sound, not wanting to make this harder for her.

"Sorry," she said. "There's dried blood I need to get off of you."

"It's fine," he told her.

"Of course, it is."

"Grace, it's really not a big deal."

"I have a feeling you could have a hole the size of a bowling ball through you, and if I asked, you'd say, 'No big deal. Really.' "

He looked over at her, concentrating so intently on what she was doing, one hand pressed flat against his side above the incision and the other trying to clean the dried blood around it without hurting him.

He'd had a lot of hands on him, taking care of him in some way. Some of them had been strong and confident, but not particularly concerned with whether they were hurting him, intent on their task instead. A lot of them had been just plain busy hands, a few impatient, a few strong and insistent, especially when pushing him through his required therapy, which was hell at times. And some of those hands had soothed him, warmed him, left him feeling like he was not alone.

Grace's hands were small, patient, kind and careful. It was like that embrace she'd given him, like he could feel the kindness, the concern coming through her hands. Like she said with a touch,
I'm here. Everything's going to be better now. I'm going to take care of you.

As if he'd ever let himself be taken care of by a woman. What an odd idea. Although, for a moment in the bedroom, he had let that happen, drinking in the touch of her, the feel, the smell, that wonderful softness. If it had been up to him, he might never have found the strength to move away from her.

"Almost done with this part," she said, frowning in concentration.

He fought the urge to tuck her hair back behind her ear, so he'd have an unobstructed view of her face, tried not to think of his shirt touching all that pretty, bare skin of hers, especially those perfect breasts. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her in that tight T-shirt again or merely holding it against her bare flesh. When he kept his eyes open, she was there by his side, her hands on him. A man just couldn't win. Or lose, depending on how he thought about it.

"Okay, we have hydrogen peroxide or antibiotic cream. I'm thinking... both?"

"Peroxide cleans and it's... antifungal? No, but anti-something. Antiseptic, I think," he said.

She gave him a puzzled look.

"We don't have a first aid badge, but something similar, which I earned. And just so you know, if you ever get in a spot and need to blow something up, you can make a bomb with the peroxide, too."

She made a face, and he laughed, couldn't help it. She was so cute.

"I guess you guys have a blow-stuff-up-with-common-household-materials badge?" she asked as she tucked a clean towel against his side and poured peroxide into the bottle's cap.

"Yeah, that was a fun one."

"I feel so much safer, knowing I'm with a man who can make a bomb out of peroxide and has a nice, big gun."

She tilted the capful of peroxide sideways on his side, and he flinched, couldn't help it. She looked horrified. "That shouldn't hurt. I've had that on a ton of scrapes and cuts. It shouldn't hurt."

"It didn't. It's just really cold."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Grace, stop worrying."

"It just... You're making jokes about it, but it looks like you must have been hurt over and over again. Bullet wounds. Knife wounds. I can't even imagine what you did to your shoulder—"

"Shrapnel. It's a spray of shrapnel. Nothing that cut too deep or did any real damage, just an odd pattern of scars. Looks a lot worse than it was."

"Still, the scars... You have so many. And this incision? This looks—"

"Frankenstein-ish. I know. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? Why are you sorry?"

"That you have to see it. It's not a pretty sight."

"I don't care about that. How could you think I'd care about that? I just... hate thinking about you being hurt so often and so badly." She sat back and looked at him, tears in her eyes. "You know, some people might think it was time to give up... cliff diving. Since it's so dangerous."

"I don't know if it's even my choice anymore. The doctors had to rebuild part of my hipbone. That's what's beneath that incision. If I'm not a hundred percent physically..." Not to mention his sad mental state. He'd have to pass both physical and mental evaluations to get back into the field.

"Well, if I get a vote, I wouldn't exactly be all broken up about the fact that you can't jump off of cliffs anymore." She waited, watching him. "Would you really miss it? After all this?"

"I'd miss the people. You get close fast. The guys I worked with... We'd been together for a while."

"And you lost one of them?"

To which he couldn't bring himself to say anything.

"Same accident that did this to you?" she asked.

"It wasn't an accident. They wanted to kill us." And then he couldn't look at her anymore, so he turned his head away. "Let's get this done, Grace."

"Sure. I'm sorry."

He felt the cold peroxide again, but didn't flinch this time. Then she smeared on the antibiotic cream, so slowly, so carefully, so kindly.

"I found butterfly bandages, which say you can use them to close small wounds and ones in places where the movement of your body isn't likely to pull a cut apart. Should I use them on this?"

"Can't hurt. Unless you want to sew it up yourself."

Her mouth fell open. "No, I am not doing that. If that's what you need, get up. I'll take you to the hospital right now—"

"Grace, I'm kidding—"

"About having someone other than a doctor sew you up?"

"It's not a big deal—"

"If you say that to me one more time, I'm going to pour this whole bottle of peroxide on you." She held it up like it was a real threat.

He smiled. "No, you wouldn't. You're too nice to hurt anybody, and I might need that, tomorrow, for this incision."

"You don't know I wouldn't hurt anybody. You barely know me."

"Honey, it doesn't take long with you to know you'd never hurt a soul." Which only seemed to make her madder.

"You and your friends actually sew each other up in the field?" she asked.

"If it has to be done. It's not that different from... you know, plain sewing."

"Except you're poking a needle through someone's skin, probably without either one of you so much as flinching, because... you know... can't let anyone know anything actually hurts."

"So, my tough-guy act isn't impressing you at all?" he asked, because teasing her and even making her mad was easier than just lying there, letting her touch him and trying not to react.

Pretty, kind and funny?

How could any man have left her?

If he had actually left her. She hadn't exactly said the guy was out of the picture, had she? Just that he'd cheated on her, and she was looking for proof.

"You can't go back to him," Aidan just blurted out.

"What?"

"The idiot husband. Tell me you won't go back to him."

She frowned. "I won't."

"You say that now, but women put up with so much crap from men. Unless he's the biggest idiot on the planet—which, obviously, he would have to be to have cheated on you—he'll come crawling back one day, begging, saying exactly what he thinks you want to hear."

"No, he won't—"

"Don't do it, Grace. Promise me."

"I promise."

"And if you ever want me to hurt him—really hurt him—just give me a call. I'll make my little peroxide bomb and blow something up with him in it, and then I'll sew him back together myself, very slowly, without any anesthetic. And if that's not enough, we can help him dive off a cliff. Okay?"

"Thank you. I needed that. Someone to be outraged on my behalf and have revenge fantasies with me. Very creative ones, too. Mine never involved peroxide bombs or needles and thread. But I like it."

"I'm kidding about the method, but not about being willing to hurt the man. I'll make him cry like a baby. It would be my pleasure. All you have to do is say the word."

He was starting to think he'd do anything for her. Anything to be her hero.

"Thank you." She didn't look nearly as sad then, as she held up the butterfly bandages. "So you want these, too?"

"Sure."

"They won't hold if you try to haul a tree off of anyone. The package says so, which means, no more trees for you. Promise."

"Grace, if there's a tree on you, I'm going to move it. But if it comes down to that, I'll go willingly to the doctor and let him stitch me back up afterward."

"If that's the best you can do—"

"It is. I'm never going to stand by and watch while you get hurt." Which came out curiously like a promise, and not the silly revenge-fantasy kind.

She stared at him. Waiting for him to make some kind of joke out of it? He couldn't. Just couldn't. He liked her too much already. And just look at her. Men had probably been falling for her on sight her whole life and made all sorts of outlandish promises to try to win her over.

Now, one of them had broken her heart.

So any hint of someone falling for her, hard and fast and for any kind of superficial reason, was not going to work with her. He knew that. He shouldn't even be trying.

Was he really trying? He'd just met her, while hobbling around like an old man, scars all over his body, more of a mess than he'd ever been in his life.

"Sorry," he said, trying to think of exactly what he should be sorry for, trying to laugh it off. "Just stay out from under the trees, okay?"

She laughed, too, which is what he wanted, but she still seemed a bit wary. "Here? I'm probably under a dozen trees right now."

"Okay, so that's not going to work. We'll have to hope none of them fall on you before you leave." That was it. That's what he had to talk to her about. "Grace, you know you probably won't get out of here today, right? I mean, it's still raining. It's been raining forever. The road's going to be a mess. Even the ambulance guys were worried about getting stuck. Do you have four-wheel drive?"

"No."

"I'm surprised you could get here in the first place today—"

"It wasn't easy," she admitted. "If I hadn't been so mad, I probably would have turned back before I did."

"Yeah. Well, it's likely you'd never make it out without getting stuck. Plus, there may well be a tree or a big branch blocking the road by now. It happens out here. No streetlights, either, so visibility sucks even when it's not storming. You probably need to spend the night. I know you really don't know me, but I would never do anything to hurt you—"

"I know that."

"I'll do whatever it takes to make you comfortable. I'd say I'll sleep in my car, but all I have is a motorcycle I borrowed from a friend of a friend, to use while I'm here. I guess I could sleep in your car, and you could lock yourself in here."